Prestigio Multiphone 5508 Duo Review, A Sweet Looking Lifestyle Phone With Selfie Flash!

Prestigio, is one of the newest luxury lifestyle mobile brand in the country. Like most companies, they have their very own flagship smartphone, and that is the Prestigio Multiphone 5508 Duo who aims to target yuppies and young executives who wanted a device that's not too expensive, but not too cheap, looks great for representation purposes and performs decently in general. 

Prestigio Multiphone 5508 Duo Review

Prestigio Multiphone 5508 Duo Specs

Display: 5 Inch IPS HD 1280 x 720 resolution at 294 ppi

CPU: 1.7 GHz MT6592 octa core processor

GPU: Mali 450

RAM: 1 GB

ROM: 16 GB

Back Camera: 13 MP Sony sensor w/ LED flash

Selfie Camera: 5 MP w/ flash

Battery: 2,300 mAh

OS: Android 4.4 Kitkat

Connectivity: WiFi,  3G, HSPA+, Bluetooth, Dual SIM, Dual Standby, GPS, A-GPS, Micro USB 2.0

Sensors: Accelerometer, light, proximity, gyroscope

Others: Free 200 GB cloud storage

Dimensions: 142.5 x 70.8 x 8.3 mm

Weight: 129 g

Price: 13,899 Pesos

Unboxing / Accessories

Packaging alone gives the Multiphone 5508 by Prestigio an impression that shouts "im a luxurious phone". It's using an Ekotek thick like box with great design that looks appealing to those who wanted to have a device with a lot of "class".

The box

Upon opening the box, the 5508 might not disappoint you. It comes with a great quality protective silicon case, free decent sounding in ear monitors with mic, 1A wall charger, a short micro USB cable and the manuals.

What's inside the box

The package is near perfect for me except for two things: 1. The 1 A wall charger isn't made for Philippine standards as it's not using the regular port we use here. 2. The micro USB data / charging cables might be too short for those who wanted to use their devices while charging. Maybe Prestigio Philippines should take note of this minor things to further refine the phone experience.

Build Quality / Design

The slim metal clad build of 5508 and the visible micro SIM card slot on the side

If there's one thing where the Prestigio 5508 excels the most, its with the build quality and design. It features an elegant well machined aluminum frame that has a bold Prestigio emblem at the back which generally looks amazing. I also like the way they put the device together as there are no noticeable gaps and feels seamless in general.

Volume rocker and  full SIM slot

It also has a curved back with brushed look that soft and easy to hold. I also like to laud them for making the edges smooth but gives you good grip at the same time On the side, we get nice slimness and aluminum frame that gives you more confidence in its quality.

On top of the phone showing the power button, microphone and 3.5 mm female jack

Below you find another microphone and the micro USB charging / data port

On top I also find the power button oddly placed, I would have liked it better if it's on the side as a 5 inch phone is already big enough to hardly reach that.

The phone in its full glory

To sum it up the Prestigio 5508 looks great enough worthy of flaunting it with others, just be extra careful against bad elements. The good thing here is you have a free case that can give you added protection.

Note: If I'm not mistaken this device reminds me of the Cherry Mobile Magnum S

Display Quality

Screen of 5508 under sunlight

The 5 inch HD display of the phone is quite nice, bright and sharp. There's no noticeable pixels and has nice close to accurate color reproduction. The viewing angles is also excellent with this as it's using a near OGS panel if I'm correct. It also has a capacitive keys below that lights whenever you touch it. Lastly, it's protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 that prevents scratches and breakage as much as possible.

To nitpick a little, I just find the display a bit too bright that hurts my eyes on max level.

Audio Quality

Audio quality is pretty standard for a 2014 midrange device and there's nothing too fancy with it. The 5508 boast good enough speaker volume that let's you clearly hear your phone ring even from afar at even just 60-80% loudness. Sonically, the speakers is quite pleasing to the ears with no harshness unless you try to crank the volume forcefully using an app.

The headphone out, is also quite balanced as expected from a device that boast this type of specs. It's clear, isn't muddy, has good details and good loudness. The dual microphone on the other hand can do clear calls and record tunes neatly.

Battery

Just a little under 3 hours on extremely heavy usage

On casual usage, the battery of this phone performs on an average level. It can last with me at least 8 hours on a single charge with me using it with regular texting, calls, social media and taking photos. However, under heavy usage that with data, wifi, bluetooth, max brightness and gaming all at the same time, it drains faster than I expected.

Camera

One of the thing that Prestigio boast with the this phone is it's camera. It boast a 13 MP Sony sensor in front with dual LED flash and a 5 MP selfie camera with flash too!

Quality wise, I'm pleased with what with its back camera. It performed amazingly under natural sun lighting making the colors of your subject stand out, give it good amount of sharpness and the color tone looks pretty natural to my eyes. The HDR mode also performed decently especially when you use it against the light, but it overexpose when there's good enough lighting.

What I love here is it's Selfie camera, it's generally acceptable to my standards and I'm contented on how sharp I look there. It's also good with video as I experienced less lag compared with others even if I'm constantly walking.

All of the other controls were pretty basic as it's using a stock Android Kitkat camera app. Maybe my only grip here is the shutter and focus is quite slow especially under HDR mode and low light.

Camera Samples

Decent enough for your #FoodPorn addiction

Great landscape image quality in good natural light condition (Pretty sharp)

Colors were pretty accurate, it's cloudy and quite dark when I took this photo

Notice the difference between regular shot and HDR in against the light situations

It's pretty bad and blurred in low light, use the flash instead to take better pictures

My skin is pretty dry that day, beautify did the trick LOL

Selfie looks grainy in low light just like most phones

Thank God, it includes a flash in front to save the day

Performance

The generic stock UI of Multiphone 5508

The Prestigio 5508 performed in a way I expected from an 1.7 GHz MT6592 octa core smartphone, it's noticeably faster than SKK Lynx who's using the 1.4 GHz variant and it performed generally okay in my opinion. There were no noticeable hiccups when switching from one app to another and the entire interface is easy to understand. I also experienced a software update that's said to improve overall smoothness of the phone. However, at this price, I would have liked it better if it sports at least 2 GB of RAM to improve the "casual" multitasking experience.

Storage used and display settings

What worries me here is the amount of bloatwares installed. You also get a 10 GB space out of the available 12.70 GB. That means that the pre-installed apps is eating 1.13 GB of memory. That's quite large considering that this phone doesn't have an expandable storage.

Fortunately, some of them are actually useful like the free 200 GB cloud storage, the Prestigio Multi Store that comes with a lot of paid apps for free and the nice e-book reader. You can also uninstall some if you don't need them.

All of the features I normally test worked well too, I had no problem in 3G, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. When it comes to gaming the Mali 450 GPU supports a lot of the modern games making this device a pretty decent gaming phone. Just make sure not to play too long as it heats up a little and you'll notice some frame drops.

Benchmarks

It scored over 32K and has 5 points of multi touch via Antutu

Quite high multi score and quadramt

GPU bench score

Pro's - Prestigious design and build, good camera, selfie flash, 200 GB free cloud storage

Con's - A lot of bloatwares, power hungry SoC, non expandable storage, quite pricey for the specs, still on Kitkat

Verdict

The Prestigio 5508 is a decent phone with a lot sleekness installed. It's clearly targeted for those individuals that would like to have a good looking European branded device that doesn't care too much about the specs. However, considering that this is a 2014 phone, I'm expecting Prestigio Philippines to slash the price of the 5508 to give this better affordability.

GIZ Rating 3.5 / 5 Stars

Where to buy this: Click Here!